


Astronomy in Reverse

by vargrimar



Series: The Chambers and the Valves [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s01e03 The Great Game, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Introspection, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 01, and then 'oh no john is amazing', plus a lot of 'wow john is amazing'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22822255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vargrimar/pseuds/vargrimar
Summary: So when Moriarty tells him, “I’ll burn theheartout of you,” Sherlock takes it to mean emotion, because that’s what heart is. Rarely do people truly mean the chambers and the valves beating in an anatomically correct mass of cardiac muscle tissue lodged in their chest cavity—unless they happen to be one Molly Hooper, whose job it is to examine corpses that may or may not lack an anatomically correct mass of cardiac muscle tissue lodged in their chest cavity.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: The Chambers and the Valves [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640680
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	Astronomy in Reverse

**Author's Note:**

> (it was me who was discovered)

He just doesn’t understand.

Why is it that the heart still symbolises human emotion? It’s completely and utterly wrong. Has been for centuries. Aristotle, while brilliant for his time given the breadth of information available, could not have been more wrong about this one simple thing. A single erroneous conjecture thousands of years ago resulted in ‘heart’ meaning ‘sentiment’, and without anyone bothering to correct it, the concept somehow bled like watercolour through loads of thin paper-languages ever since.

So when Moriarty tells him, “I’ll burn the _heart_ out of you,” Sherlock takes it to mean emotion, because that’s what heart is. Rarely do people truly mean the chambers and the valves beating in an anatomically correct mass of cardiac muscle tissue lodged in their chest cavity—unless they happen to be one Molly Hooper, whose job it is to examine corpses that may or may not lack an anatomically correct mass of cardiac muscle tissue lodged in their chest cavity.

And so Sherlock replies, “I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one,” because they are not talking of cardiac muscle tissue and language is stupid and sentiment will not help him here, and John—steadfast, loyal, wonderful John—is standing by the pool where Carl Powers died with Semtex strapped round his body and a crimson sniper’s dot skittering across his chest, and all Sherlock can think of is what he must do to keep John alive.

Because John must be kept alive. That is paramount. No question, no hesitation. John must be kept alive. Sherlock knows this despite his lack of heart.

“But we both know that’s not quite true.” Moriarty dons a pawky smile.

The air reeks of chlorine and the humid molecules stick to Sherlock’s every inhale. He must keep them controlled, keep them steady, because he cannot let the baser functions claim rule. His elevated pulse and shortened breath tell him that adrenaline has been released into his bloodstream, and adrenaline tells him that this is fight-or-flight.

A previous glance in John’s direction had showed him much the same: slick sweat, dilated pupils, harsh breathing, a fresh flood from when John had surged forward and crooked his arm round Moriarty’s skinny neck. Like John, Sherlock’s body is in anticipatory overdrive, primed for combat and pumped for the chase, and yet the situation requires horrible, agonising inaction.

Damn the bloody transport.

Moriarty bobs his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. “Well, I’d better be off. So nice to have had a proper chat.”

But Sherlock presses further—“What if I was to shoot you now? Right now?”—because he must know the extent of this, he _must_ know how deep Moriarty’s web goes; he’s certain they’ve skimmed the barest of shallows and the sensation of looking down into an open, dark, fathomless ocean ravine is almost dizzying.

“Then you could cherish the look of surprise on my face.” Eyes wide, mouth open, Moriarty pantomimes the experience. “‘Cause I’d be surprised, Sherlock. Really, I would. And just a teensy bit…” His face scrunches. “Disappointed.”

Sherlock continues to stare, John’s firearm heavy in his hand. He keeps every muscle rigid despite the aching strain. The impulse whittles at his resolve, but he must not look at John or the laser sight highlighting the placket of his tartan shirt. He dares not look; he can’t, even when Moriarty cares to issue one final threat between the lines of a lingering sequitur, soft and calm in his Irish lilt: _Any move you make tonight will be pointless because your doctor will die_.

Moriarty’s farewell is flippant and brief, underscored by a latent note of malevolence that not even the idiots at the Met could miss. Sherlock forces a clipped farewell of his own as he tracks Moriarty’s movement with the SIG. The man carries himself with such insouciance, such confidence, further asserting the fact that he is untouchable to his captive audience. The only available action is inaction; with the explosives and the lurking marksman, there’s nothing for it. Sherlock plays the part of a cornered king with bishops and rooks looming in the distance as his own knight stands indisposed, and he _abhors_ it.

Moriarty opens the pool room door. He steps through, flicks a causal wave, and flashes Sherlock a vulpine grin.

“No, you won’t!” he says—because of course he must get the final word, he’s that sort, this entire situation screams it—and it echoes in a harsh, discordant falsetto toward the centre’s darkened ceiling.

Moriarty leaves. The laser sight evaporates in a flickering pirouette.

Five long seconds tick by after the slam of the door. Each is replete with shuddering breaths and the pool’s gentle, watery churn.

And then Sherlock surges toward John—John and his explosive-lined coat, John and his storm-ridden eyes, John so dauntless and valourous and sure—and rips the velcro apart. The sweat on his palms (epinephrine, endocrine product, stress response) dampens the straps, but Sherlock ignores it and curves round to John’s back, yanking off the coat and flinging it across the tile with as much force as he can possibly muster.

Because John must be kept alive. No matter the cost, John Watson must be kept alive.

Sherlock snatches up the SIG once more as John staggers bonelessly to the floor. Gun raised, Sherlock whips around to check the corridor beyond the exit door. It lies dim and empty, a welcome sight for Carl Powers’ grave when London’s most sinister consulting criminal had stalked down it not moments ago.

Something like relief cloaks Sherlock’s shoulders. The knot in his throat has loosened, which is news to him because he does not remember a knot being there at all.

He rejoins John by the pool in a few swift strides. John gasps against the curtained cubicles, crumpled on his haunches, shaken but unharmed. A cursory sweep of the room reveals no other visible threats, so Sherlock allows the jittery energy pent up in his body to course and he begins to pace.

Consulting criminal. Countless connections. Favours in high places with friends in higher still. _Please, Jim, will you fix it for me._ Carl Powers. The cabbie. The scamming couple. The television star. The curator. John.

Sherlock presses the muzzle of the SIG by his temple as if it could somehow magnetise the important thoughts and draw them out from the din. It would be a hell of a lot easier to think without this distracting noise in his ears because he needs all of his brain power right now if he’s to formulate a plan on Moriarty and whatever else he has tangled beneath the surface, but it isn’t going away. It’s constant, it’s rhythmic, it’s deafening, it’s—

Thunder, Sherlock realises. That’s his pulse, and it sounds like fucking thunder.

“Are you okay?” John’s voice glides in between the heavy thrums.

“Me? Yeah, fine,” he says, much too fast. “I’m fine. Fine.”

It sounds less sincere that it should (wrong inflection, too short, dismissive), but as long as it placates John, that’s all that matters. John is fine, which means Sherlock is fine, even if Sherlock has a tempest shoved in the heaving vault under his ribs.

And that is normal after something like this. It is. He knows it is. The body has an acute stress response to threats and danger, and it results in shaking, shortness of breath, sweat production, accelerated heart rate, flushed features; all the typical symptoms.

Sherlock pivots on his heel mid-pace and turns back to John. He observes the way John leans against the cubicle, back curved and knees bent, too spent to stand but too unsettled to sit. He observes the rumples in his shirt, the creases in his jeans, how the right side of his cardigan sits askew from the discarded coat. He observes the damp sheen on John’s brow, the steadying cadence of his respiration, the dark blue-grey of his eyes fluttering behind light lashes. He observes the lines of his face as they soften in sheer, unequivocal relief.

John.

He must have been drugged, Sherlock thinks. Drugged, then brought here. Fitted with the Semtex, the earpiece, forced to lie in wait. For how long? Not more than ten minutes; John was lucid for the entire ordeal. Small dose, then. Five minutes to acclimatise and receive instruction with another five for the target—Sherlock—to arrive.

God, and Sherlock had left the flat almost as soon as John said he wouldn’t be round for tea. Had they picked him up then? Had John sat in one of the adjoining rooms or corridors with Moriarty or his people whilst Sherlock made his way to the sports centre? Or had he been alone, waiting, with only a voice in his ear?

No. No, it doesn’t matter. Everything is fine. John is fine. All that matters is that John is fine. If John wants to say, he’ll say. Until then, Sherlock needs to think of other things. What now things. Going home things. Homeless network surveillance things. Mycroft is going to be cross about those missile plans things. A criminal mastermind has just revealed himself by abducting my flatmate things.

Except at the zenith of those things is the stark, unavoidable fact that despite the innate terror of having a sniper’s sight centred on his chest, John had launched himself at Moriarty. John had hooked his arm round Moriarty’s neck and held him captive. He had told Sherlock to _run_. John—brave, selfless, marvellous John—stood unflinchingly in the face of death, completely willing to sacrifice himself for a man he has known for only two months.

The thunder does not cease.

“That, uh… thing that you, uh, that you did, that, um”—Sherlock clears his throat and shifts the SIG into his left hand—“you offered to do. That was, um…”

_Amazing. Extraordinary. Brilliant. Fantastic._

_The most meaningful thing anyone has ever done for me._

His mouth opens, closes, and the SIG switches hands again. Excess energy, epinephrine overflow, no outlet. Culprit: adrenal medulla.

“… good,” he manages at last. It’s the truth, it is, but not the truth he wants to tell.

It isn’t long before Moriarty steps back into the room and a half dozen more crimson laser sights appear to stipple their shirts, but by then Sherlock has already come to an unfortunate realisation.

It is unfortunate because Jim Moriarty is correct: Sherlock does indeed have a heart.

And it is not the anatomically correct mass of cardiac muscle tissue thundering, thundering, thundering within his chest.


End file.
